Tails on the hide? Tan feet?

Wondering if anyone has successfully tanned leaving the tails on the hide? If so, how? I just love the tails. I have tried unsuccessfully many times to try to cut the bone out - slitting down the underside of the tail - I can often get about half out before the tip half of the fur comes off with the bone.

I tried to tan a batch of feet and tails with bone-in with an alum/salt mix it was a disaster. The smell was horrendous. Does anyone here tan the feet? I hate wasting... plus I'm an artist so those feet seem like they are perfectly good potential sculptural material for some art project... destiny for some of the hides as well. (for some of the edgier things I make from bones and fur, not the rabbit angels

Stormy":tgzwa6fu said:

Wondering if anyone has successfully tanned leaving the tails on the hide? If so, how? I just love the tails. I have tried unsuccessfully many times to try to cut the bone out - slitting down the underside of the tail - I can often get about half out before the tip half of the fur comes off with the bone.

This works with fox and squirrel who have a lot longer tails. Take two pencils or dowels. Skin the tail to the point you can get the pencils/dowels on either side of the tail bone. Press together and pull with a steady force. The tail bone should slip right out. You will then need to salt/treat being sure you reach the tip of the tail. Alternatively, do as you mentioned, slitting the tail skin to the tip and skinning out the bone. Go slow, take your time, and don't pull.

I tried to tan a batch of feet and tails with bone-in with an alum/salt mix it was a disaster. The smell was horrendous. Does anyone here tan the feet? I hate wasting... plus I'm an artist so those feet seem like they are perfectly good potential sculptural material for some art project... destiny for some of the hides as well. (for some of the edgier things I make from bones and fur, not the rabbit angels

Click to expand...

Option 1: This came from another forum, and is not mine, but I was going to suggest freeze drying........"If you do, put them in a small cardboard box with holes in it and freeze them. They will be ready about Christmas if you do that. There's actually not a whole lot of meat and fat on the feet of a rabbit and hanging them up in a barn will also work but the freeze dry method is better. Your freezer will do that quite well, it just takes longer than the conventional freezedrier ( And it's cheaper)."

Option 2 and probably the better for longer life (of the foot) is to skin down to the toe nails, remove meat, apply borax liberally to bone put hide back up and sew the ends closed. Allow to dry.

Option 3 I'm not sure about this one, but I've heard of it. Inject with denatured alcohol and allow to dry. You would need to be sure to reach all areas - toes, etc.

Lastfling":7envb98c said:

This works with fox and squirrel who have a lot longer tails. Take two pencils or dowels. Skin the tail to the point you can get the pencils/dowels on either side of the tail bone. Press together and pull with a steady force. The tail bone should slip right out. You will then need to salt/treat being sure you reach the tip of the tail. Alternatively, do as you mentioned, slitting the tail skin to the tip and skinning out the bone. Go slow, take your time, and don't pull.[/b]

Click to expand...

Have you tried this method with rabbit? I have a hard time imagining getting two pencils in between skin and bone... but will try next batch.

Lastfling":7envb98c said:

Option 1: This came from another forum, and is not mine, but I was going to suggest freeze drying........"If you do, put them in a small cardboard box with holes in it and freeze them. They will be ready about Christmas if you do that. There's actually not a whole lot of meat and fat on the feet of a rabbit and hanging them up in a barn will also work but the freeze dry method is better. Your freezer will do that quite well, it just takes longer than the conventional freezedrier ( And it's cheaper)."

Click to expand...

That would preserve it? that's a little bit wild... but worth a shot. Your other suggestion of skinning off the feet and toes sounds like a tremendous amount of work - whew! I remember how popular lucky rabbit's feet were when I was a kid. They were perfectly preserved - not skinned or anything. Maybe I just needed more alum/salt to penetrate better, like pickling it. It seems alum/salt mix would do something more for long term shelf life than freeze drying... but hey, what do I know? Willing to try both - thanks for the suggestions

Stormy":d9rj3kbk said:

I remember how popular lucky rabbit's feet were when I was a kid.

Click to expand...

Yeah- they always had a jar on the counter at the local 7-11, and they were dyed all sorts of crazy colors.

Ohiogoatgirl was going to try preserving the feet- you might ask her if she ever got around to it.

Here at Chez MSD, the dogs would be devastated if I tried preserving them- they love to eat them on processing day.

Wash rabbits foot with mild soap and warm water. Submerge in rubbing alcohol for 48 hrs.Rinse. Then mix a gallon of warm water and 1 cup of borax. Put the rabbits feet in and swish them around some. Then let dry. You also may want to trim their nails.

MamaSheepdog":kcdbmeck said:

Stormy":kcdbmeck said:

I remember how popular lucky rabbit's feet were when I was a kid.

Click to expand...

Yeah- they always had a jar on the counter at the local 7-11, and they were dyed all sorts of crazy colors.

Ohiogoatgirl was going to try preserving the feet- you might ask her if she ever got around to it.

Here at Chez MSD, the dogs would be devastated if I tried preserving them- they love to eat them on processing day.

Click to expand...

nope I haven't yet. I finally got a barrel though. got tons of hides so think i'm gonne just toss them all in one go except the big buck fur from my dads huge buck deer last year.

once I get a lid situated and get the project going i'll make a thread on it though.

ohiogoatgirl":2xlmk5yh said:

MamaSheepdog":2xlmk5yh said:

Stormy":2xlmk5yh said:

I remember how popular lucky rabbit's feet were when I was a kid.

Click to expand...

Yeah- they always had a jar on the counter at the local 7-11, and they were dyed all sorts of crazy colors.

Ohiogoatgirl was going to try preserving the feet- you might ask her if she ever got around to it.

Here at Chez MSD, the dogs would be devastated if I tried preserving them- they love to eat them on processing day.

Click to expand...

nope I haven't yet. I finally got a barrel though. got tons of hides so think i'm gonne just toss them all in one go except the big buck fur from my dads huge buck deer last year.

once I get a lid situated and get the project going i'll make a thread on it though.

Click to expand...

You going to toss those feet in with the hides? That's how I ended up with a rotting mess in my laundry room, and dang did it stink. I had about 5 sets of feet in with their hides. It didn't work out. Love to hear your experience! I think I'll try the borax solution mentioned above, or a real extra concentrated alum/salt mix.

"luvmybunnys" pretty much has the process down. I have preserved many animal feet, including coon, coyote (my personal favorite), and fox. This method which I will restate is tried and true and is easy to perform. It will result in a (nearly) forever-preserved animal foot.

Take your feet, and wash them in water and soap. No special soap is needed, any ordinary dish soap works fine (I use Dawn just because I have it on hand). Wash until no blood tints the water or otherwise satisfied. Washing is not an extreme necessity so do not worry about it. Next, fully submerge your feet in a container of rubbing/isopropyl alcohol for at least 48 hours. Next, prepare a saturated Borax solution. To do this, you do not need a whole gallon of water. Simply take a container that can generously fit the feet and fill it with (preferably) warm water. Then continue to dissolve Borax until it won't dissolve any more. Then, take the feet out of the alcohol and put them straight into the Borax Solution for about 24 hours (Timings are not critical, don't sweat hitting the "24" mark spot on). Lastly, wash your feet under warm water to get off any Borax solution or crystals on the outside of the feet. Dry with paper towels/air dry and that is your final product.
You will know you did it correctly if at the end of the process, the joints and muscles begin to stiffen and harden within a day or two. It may also shrink a little due to the flesh dehydrating. This is normal. It should also not smell of rot at all.

How It Works

To begin with, a foot will be moisturized full of water. Water evaporates very slowly, especially through flesh, and can easily harbor bacteria and rot. When submerged in the alcohol, the alcohol displaces the water in the foot. The foot then becomes moisturized with alcohol rather than water. Alcohol is much more volatile and is anti-bacterial; it will also evaporate very fast, quickly drying out the foot.

When the foot is place into the Borax solution (which also negates any bacterial growth), the Borax solution then, in turn, displaces some of the alcohol in the foot. After washing the Borax solution off the fur of the foot and what not, you end up with a foot moisturized with alcohol and Borax solution. The first effect is that the foot dries out very fast, restricting the time needed for significant bacterial growth (rot). Second, the Borax solution leave behind microscopic Borax crystals in the dried flesh of the foot, making it even less susceptible to bacterial attack. Thus, you end up with a perfectly preserved animal foot.

This is very cool - thank you. :goodpost: I hated tossing all those feet, from so many bunnies - especially since they are beautiful blue feet. Same reason I want to keep their beautiful blue fur, even if they are tender- skinned. Thanks all! I will try this!! This forum rocks! inkbunny:

With some practice and skill you can remove both the foot bones and the tailbone.
After that it tans up just fine like the rest of the pelt. They sell for a lot more that way too.

When I was a teen I tied twine onto a rabbit foot and hung from a crafter in the garage in summer. I had it in there just over a month and the foot was dried out. I then put felt on the end. I thought it was so cool. Not sure how long it lasted as a few months later a kid visited and I gave it to him. His mom was not to happy.

I always cut off the tails and give them to my cats or dog to play with. They looooooove it!

Stormy":19wu2pkm said:

Wondering if anyone has successfully tanned leaving the tails on the hide? If so, how? I just love the tails. I have tried unsuccessfully many times to try to cut the bone out - slitting down the underside of the tail - I can often get about half out before the tip half of the fur comes off with the bone.

I tried to tan a batch of feet and tails with bone-in with an alum/salt mix it was a disaster. The smell was horrendous. Does anyone here tan the feet? I hate wasting... plus I'm an artist so those feet seem like they are perfectly good potential sculptural material for some art project... destiny for some of the hides as well. (for some of the edgier things I make from bones and fur, not the rabbit angels

Click to expand...

I have cured feet in salt before for 3 weeks, but I forgot to put the keychains on the feet before I started the curing process.
The salt sollution smells really bad. Next time I go to cure a batch of feet I am going to try and use rubbing alcohol and Borax and see how they turn out with that. I have heard it's a much faster and a whole lot less potent.

~SDR

Here's a tip that may help in getting the tail bone out. Skin up far enough on the tail bone that you can get two pencils (one on either side). Press the pencils together and pull towards the end of the tail. The tail skin should slip off the bone. This work most times, although - fair disclosure - sometimes it doesn't and the tail breaks. I've used it to skin squirrel and fox tails, so a rabbit tail with a lot shorter tail bone should work as well. You will need to be sure and get your salt and pickle / tanning solution up in the area the bone was in though or otherwise it will slip.

PS a dowel can be substituted for the pencils.

I do feet all the time - my niece has 3 done by me on her quiver.

I rinse them in warm water until the water comes clean.

Then I place them in a solution of warm water/borax for 24hrs.

I take them out and dry them the best that I can.

Then I put them in pickling salt for a while - usually a few weeks, sometimes as long as few months, basically until I remember they are there, or someone nags me about wanting a rabbit foot.

At some point I trim the nails - sometimes when they're still attached to the rabbit, sometimes after the borax bath. I've never tried once they've sat in the salt.

I don't attach the key rings/cuffs until they're completely dry. I make these out of galvanized wire(sometimes copper, depends what's on hand), and I coil the wire around an AA battery, then super glue it onto the foot(the coil, not the battery.)

I've also dyed feet. I was a little worried about them getting wet after they'd been salted, but tried it anyway. I used ink from a pen and ink set, and it seems to be staying fairly well. Then I traded a foot for some fabric dye, and intend to try the fabric dye next. I just put the foot in the ink for a minute or two, and then put it on paper towels to air dry.

I deboned the feet and tail on these ones too, all except the last digit of the toes.

I was doing a lot of this for a while.
I could never make them faster than they would sell and always had long waiting lists.
It's a high profit way of doing hides small scale. 5 hides like this easily sell for $175

My question is "How the heck can you get them skinned to look like that?"

Sagebrush":3jct94ls said:

My question is "How the heck can you get them skinned to look like that?"

Click to expand...

The easy answer? Natural talent.

No really,
I just use a short belly cut with relief cuts on the paws and tail. Surgical scalpels do the trick. The hard part is actually breaking them soft without damaging them.

That is awesome. I'm going to check for youtube videos on how to skin them like this. What is the purpose of a person purchasing a tanned hide processed in this way?

Featherhoof":3thsm0ip said:

That is awesome. I'm going to check for youtube videos on how to skin them like this. What is the purpose of a person purchasing a tanned hide processed in this way?

Click to expand...

I developed this particular skinning method for my product, and have shared the information freely on a lot of sites. I'm in the process of removing it all from the web right now because I don't always want to be known as "that person who skins rabbits." I didn't make any videos, but perhaps someone else has by now? I have seen tutorials made by others for case skinning, and making the relief cuts.

Would you believe me if I said I have no idea what people wanted them for? :?

They are suitable for soft sculpture taxidermy, and that is what I initially marketed them for.

It worked REALLY well. Students and hobbyists in particular liked the lower price (compared to fox and other furbearers) and the colors very desirable. Longer fur was better.

I also found that many people just wanted pelts like this to be...just pelts like this.

Maybe they draped them over the couch or on their beds, or just hung them on the wall? A lot of people asked me for an animals back story and a bit about it's life. I was also frequently asked for pictures of the live animal, sometimes as a taxidermy reference, and sometimes just because people seemed to want to see the animal happy and alive.

Perhaps it helped fulfill the psychological need for a pet for some people who couldn't have them?

I was careful to market them as a by-product of raising high quality, cruelty-free, sustainable protein for humans and animals. I found that they were generally accepted much more readily than animals killed only for their fur.

The other win was that fully tanned "domestic agricultural animal" fur can be legally shipped all over the world without special licensing. The furthest I've send a pelt was South Korea.